In recent years, the American public has grown increasingly skeptical of the existence of man-made climate change. Although pundits and scholars have suggested several reasons for this trend, a new study shows that the recent Great Recession has been a major factor.

Lyle Scruggs, associate professor of political science in UConn’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, suggests that this shift in opinion is related primarily to the public’s concern about the economy.

“That the economy impacts the way people prioritize the problem of climate change is uncontroversial,” says Scruggs. “What is more puzzling is why support for basic climate science has declined dramatically during this period.

“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity,” which is an unpopular viewpoint when the economy is bad, Scruggs continues. “So it’s easier for people to disbelieve in climate change, than to accept that it is real but that little should be done about it right now.”

Scruggs and UConn political science graduate student Salil Benegal published their findings online in the journal Global Environmental Change on Feb. 24. An abstract is available here.

The study relies primarily on information drawn from a number of national and international public opinion surveys dating to the late 1980s.

The researchers found significant drops in public climate change beliefs in the late 2000s: for example, the Gallup 2008 poll reported that between 60 and 65 percent of people agreed with statements of opinion that global warming is imminent, it is not exaggerated, and the theory is agreed upon by scientists. By 2010, those numbers had dropped to about 50 percent.

The authors also found a strong relationship between jobs and people’s prioritization of climate change. When the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent, an average 60 percent of people surveyed said that climate change had already begun happening. But when the jobless rate reached 10 percent, that number dropped to about 50 percent.

The paper also evaluated three other explanations for the crisis in public confidence: political partisanship, negative media coverage, and short- term weather conditions.

“We think that this is the first study to consider the economy and these explanations at the same time, says Scruggs.”

Of these, the authors found that faith in climate change dropped across political parties, among Republicans, Democrats, and independents. They also found that that the “Climategate” email hacking controversy and reported errors in the 2010 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which both occurred after public faith in climate change began to drop, were not factors.

The authors did find that if people had experienced a recent change in short-term weather, they were more likely to believe that climate is changing over the long-term. But when the study controlled for these effects, the economy mattered more than the weather, says Scruggs.

The authors also marshaled international evidence showing that European opinion points in the same direction.

“There is probably a stronger overall ‘pro-climate’ ethos in Europe,” says Scruggs. “Still, even in Europe, countries experiencing more severe national recessions saw larger declines in beliefs that global warming was occurring.”

The researchers speculate that cognitive dissonance, which arises when people experience conflicting thoughts and behaviors, could explain this pattern. Most people view economic growth and environmental protection to be in conflict, so admitting that climate change is real but should be ignored in favor of economic growth leads to an internal philosophical clash.

“Psychologically, people have to evaluate economic imperatives in the recession, and that can create conflicting concerns,” Scruggs says.

When confronted with a desire to boost the economy, he continues, people seem to convince themselves that climate change might not really be happening.

Now that the economy is beginning to bounce back and the unemployment rate is shrinking, Scruggs says it makes sense that belief in global warming has begin to rebound.

“We would expect such a rebound to continue as the economy improves,” he says. “You wouldn’t make that prediction if you think something else, like political rhetoric, is the issue.”

============================================================

Per the top graph, so as to dispel the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the defenders of faith, here’s the larger HadCRUT record for the last 30+ years – it WAS warming, but seems to have stopped in the last decade and is now headed down a bit.

In a way, it’s refreshing to hear this stated so baldly:
“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity,”
Thanks for the news flash there Lyle, I hadn’t noticed. 😉
I know post normal science methodology is vogue these days, so I guess finding evidence to support the theory without looking for evidence to invalidate it is par for the course. Still, just for kicks, have you considered the effects of climategate, climategate 2.0, gleick’s fiasco, and the glaringly obvious failure of global temperature increases to live up to the hype? Nah, didn’t think so.

The idea that people might just becoming more informed and convinced by the skeptical view of climate change seems not to have occurred to them.
And the assertion that the public’s view of climate change is turning around with the so-called improvement in the economy is nothing more than wishful thinking.

no significant warming for a decade and no new record annual temp will stop people from panic and make them skeptical of doomsayers…. But hadcrut4 apparently makes 2010 hotter than 1998 (watch this space) which will bring it into line with GISTEMP.

Meaningless sociological study pretending to be science. Looks like it was made a la Mann, with cherry-picked data and figures stuffed and hammered into the endgame “hypothesis.” This one is easy: Nothing skeptics do will make a difference and the weak peons who drop their support because they are being robbed are just selfish sinners.

“They also found that that the “Climategate” email hacking controversy and reported errors in the 2010 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which both occurred after public faith in climate change began to drop, were not factors.”
….but when skeptics point out that temperature rise begins before CO2 rise they’re told: well the CO2 might not of started the warming but contributed more and more to it as it warmed. If the logic works one way, why doesn’t it work the other?
Never mind, I’m obviously suffering from “cognitive dissonance”.

I can see a link to the economy.
Millions of people who lost their jobs and didn’t get a green job now have more time to surf. Many have noticed in the news that the CAGW researches still seem to be getting a paycheck so they follow the money. Many of those end up here or similar sites and discover with a little common sense deductive reasoning that it is all a freaking HOAX.

“That the economy impacts the way people prioritize the problem of climate change is uncontroversial,” says Scruggs. “What is more puzzling is why support for basic climate science has declined dramatically during this period.”

This guy just doesn’t get it. Of course there was a correlation between the economy and global warming science. The latter was ignored until the former collapsed in 2008. Then people started to look around. Why are my electricity bills so high (renewable energy)? Why are gas prices so high (production was limited)? Why are climate scientists keeping out dissenters while questioning their own science (Climategate emails)? Why has it stopped warming (the models are wrong)?
Now that the economy is back on track Scruggs will be eating his words while global warming alarm continues to fade away.

“We would expect such a rebound to continue as the economy improves,” he says. “You wouldn’t make that prediction if you think something else, like political rhetoric, is the issue.”

File that quote under irony. The man lives in a bubble, probably not far from a university.

In the UK back in 2008 there was a definite correlation, well more like a perfect storm:-
Gordon Brown + Global Financial Crisis + Climate Change Act!
A real live in your face “Annus horribilis” and now 4 years on and we have still only managed to get rid of one element!

Next thing you know, the tanking economy will reflect reduced job security at the UConn Poly Sci Dept. (Or will Global Climate Weirding be to blame?)
Now THAT would be a real tragedy!
Kurt in Switzerland

I’ve just collected my car from the local garage where it was being serviced. The owner informed me that he was closing down at the end of the month as business was so bad. I didn’t ask him his views on global warming. I think he had other things on his mind.

Why not, they could be right, but I’m not sure it matters. And instead of “cognitive dissonance” I would label it a normal pragmatic attitude to the real world. In a hunter-gatherer society, does it matter if the animal is non-existent or just impossible to catch? To a modern person who is not really interested in the science, does it matter if AGW is false or just impossible to impact without ruining the economy?

“pro-climate ethos”
What the [self snip: thinking of the children]!
GO CLIMATE! GO CLIMATE! GO CLIMATE GO!
CLIMATE’S #1, CLIMATE’S #1!
GOOOOO CLIMATE! YEA!
Hey, I’m pro-climate. I’m even for Global Warming. It’s really too bad they’re not right, we could just keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and have (sub)Tropics from Pole to Pole! But alas, the climate does what the climate does whether your ethos are pro-climate or con-climate. LOL.

As others have noted, this passage is fascinating:
“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity,” which is an unpopular viewpoint when the economy is bad, Scruggs continues. “So it’s easier for people to disbelieve in climate change, than to accept that it is real but that little should be done about it right now.”
I don’t think that MANY people believe this. I think that MANY people on the fringes of the left believe that, but not many others. In other words, people who don’t know anyone who has lost a job in basic industry and haven’t themselves lost such a job, or people who aren’t impacted by $4 per gallon gasoline, or people who don’t draw connections between unemployment and high energy prices. MANY of THOSE people might believe that suppression of economic activity is a good thing.

If they think this little economic downturn is changing the mood they can’t possibly think about surviving the [snip . . kbmod] storm that would erupt over the economic implosion their approved lifestyle budgets for energy and civil liberties would cause.

“Most people view economic growth and environmental protection to be in conflict, so admitting that climate change is real but should be ignored in favor of economic growth leads to an internal philosophical clash.”
Uhmm, that’s because the loons believe man is an aberration of nature and not part of nature. Ergo, anything which works to benefit mankind must work to the detriment of nature. This is the way the loons think, this is the way they’ve framed the discussion.
Don’t believe me? They wanted coal out, but they’ve not advocated the cheapest carbon free electric generation….. hydro. Nor, have they advocated the next carbon free generation source, nuclear. So, we found a bunch of nat gas, which emits a lot less CO2 than coal…… but, the loons line up against that as well, now. There isn’t any form of energy, if economically successful, which these lunatics would find acceptable.
And, it isn’t because they treasure nature, either. They destroyed an entire habitat(tortoise) to plant solar panels. The bird mincers in Cali are killing our Golden eagles by the flock. They whine and cry about disturbing the ocean and habitat, but advocate putting useless windmills up and down our coastlines. How stupid is that? They’ll destroy as much as any oil derrick, but we’ll get much less fuel and energy from it. The thing is these people aren’t in conflict with economic advancement, they are in conflict with human advancement. They are misanthropists.

Bait and switch: “Most people view economic growth and environmental protection to be in conflict>/i>
Do they? Is there proof?
I thought the paper was about the growth of AGW skepticism as a result of the economy shrinking but we are suddenly presented with quite a different animal. This phrase is inferring that skeptics are against enviromental protection. An assertion that I find offensive.

Surely if people thought it was a real and pressing problem, then they would want action taken now, almost regardless of cost, as the Alarmist believers do. Suggesting that they would believe in it, but not want any money spent solving it is ridiculous. Most people do not believe it, because we know that according to their own measurements, (from HadCrut) climate alarmists have failed to demonstrate significant (or any) warming over the last 15 years in spite of CO2 emissions shooting up.
Bottom line, where is the EVIDENCE? A slight downturn in Arctic ice, balanced by an upturn in Antarctic ice does not cut it as far as evidence is concerned. Likewise, sea-levels which show that the rate of increase is declining, likewise a lack of tropospheric heat island, likewise no statistically significant increase in Hurricanes, likewise normal variations in snow-fall from year to year. Likewise the satellite record showing that global Glacier coverage has not changed overall for 10 years. Some have shrunk, some have grown and some have remained static…etc…
IF the alarmist hypothesis was true, they could point to a specific action of climate which would verify their projections and show that their theory is has not been falsified yet, thus verifying their hypothesis according to scientific method.
Sadly for the alarmists, they have failed to even provide such a hypothesis, instead fraudulently presenting naturally variable weather as proof of global warming, and a constantly adjusted temperature record, under the control of the Alarmist’s own high command. The models are, at the very least, on the cusp of being disproven, and if the global average temperature anomaly does not rapidly increase by over 1 Celsius degree very soon, I think it will be safe to say that the models have been falsified by empirical observation. Which is what happens in true science!

“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity,” which is an unpopular viewpoint when the economy is bad, Scruggs continues. “So it’s easier for people to disbelieve in climate change, than to accept that it is real but that little should be done about it right now.”
Wow talk about a stretch. It might make sense if they were to speculate that the prospect of economic suppression would deter people from agreeing to drastic responses to agw like cap and trade or carbon taxation, etc. But to make the statement that the prospect of economic suppression would cause people to change whether or not they actually believe agw to be true is really really really out there.
How can these people not be laughed out of the peer reviewed process? How can the publisher publish this in all seriousness and expect to be looked at with any scientific respect whatsoever?
Napoleon has been quoted saying something to the effect that you shouldn’t interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. These alarmists are making every mistake in the book. The “cause” cannot possibly succeed under such a constant and crazy stupid series pronouncements and actions on their parts. Self-destruction appears to be the order of the day for agw activists.

Only commented at your excellent site once before, but it was to make the same point as this one, which is that in Bob Beckman’s book “The DownWave”, along with many other sociological changes that occur in depressions, there is a move away from fringe beliefs and religions to mainstream ones. Not sure there is a way back to the churchgoing times of the past, but it makes sense to me that with a lot of free time and apparent wealth, people go a bit loopy.

How about that one:http://anp.sagepub.com/content/46/3/265.full.pdf+html
The impact of climate change on obsessive compulsive checking concerns
1. Mairwen K Jones1
2. Bethany M Wootton2
3. Lisa D Vaccaro1
4. Ross G Menzies1
1. 1The University of Sydney Anxiety Disorders Clinic, Discipline of Behavioural and Social Sciences in Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Lidcombe, Australia
2. 2Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Australia
1. Mairwen Jones, Discipline of Behavioural and Social Sciences in Health, O Building Room 159, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, PO Box 170, Lidcombe, NSW 1825, Australia. Email: mairwen.jones@sydney.edu.au
Abstract
Objective: To investigate whether climate change has impacted on the nature of the obsessions or compulsions experienced by patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Methods: The sample comprised 50 patients with OCD checking subtype who had presented at the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at The University of Sydney seeking treatment during the period March 2008 to November 2009. Details of the type of obsessions and compulsions directly related to climate change phenomena were identified.
Results: Fourteen of the 50 participants (28%) were identified as having OCD concerns directly related to climate change. The most frequent concerns involved electricity, water and gas wastage. Less frequent concerns included pets dying of thirst and one participant was concerned about house damage due to floors cracking, pipes leaking; roof problems and white ant activity. Compulsions included checking and rechecking pet water bowls, light switches, taps, stoves, skirting boards, pipes, roofs and wooden structures. While these behaviours are not particularly unusual for people with this condition, it was the rationale they provided for carrying them out that was surprising. Instead of checking and rechecking so as to prevent fire or flood, the rituals were specifically performed so as to reduce their global footprint, or respond to climate change-induced negative events.
Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that the types of obsessions and compulsions experienced by 28% of our sample were directly aligned with the current issue of climate change and the perceived dangers associated with this phenomenon. To our knowledge this represents the first documentation of the significant impact of climate change on the nature of the concerns experienced by people with OCD checking subtype. We suggest that mental health professionals need to be aware of, and assess for the presence of such concerns.

The authors did find that if people had experienced a recent change in short-term weather, they were more likely to believe that climate is changing over the long-term. But when the study controlled for these effects, the economy mattered more than the weather, says Scruggs.
Does this mean what it seems to mean? That changing weather affects people’s beliefs but, if we remove the effect that changing weather has on people’s beliefs then the economy affects people’s beliefs more than changing weather does after we’ve removed the effect that the weather has.
If that’s accepted scientific methodology then may I present the following rationale that all climate change is natural, based on that logic:
Increased CO2 is likely to affect the climate but, when the data is controlled for that effect, natural variation matters more than increased CO2.
Can I have a grant please?

Oh, wait, this is good. Now when the Gleickians complain about how “the deniers” have been so effective in obfuscation the science and manipulating the public, now we can tell them “No, it’s the economy stupid”! And it’s peer reviewed to boot!!! 🙂

13 March 2012 – 12:44 pm
The Tyee, a Lefty Vancouver, British Columbia, website
that believes anything Warmeristas say, is now finding out that
the Canadian province’s system of carbon offsets has places
such as schools and hospitals “paying the Pacific Carbon Trust
$25 for each tonne of greenhouse gasses they emit, regardless of
what it costs the PCT to offset those emissions.
“In 2010, that added up to $1.5 million for the University of
British Columbia, $1.15 million for Vancouver Coastal Health and
$663,998 for BC Housing. ”
TT suspects that corporations are benefiting by paying much
less than public institutions to the PCT but receiving far more
from it.
For more details of this waltzing in the dark for taxpayers’dollars
originally meant for good education and health services, see
story: Paying Too Much for Carbon Offsets? – 13 March 2012
[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/03/13/BC-Carbon-Offsets/ ]
Miguel Rakiewicz

I think the unexpected cold winters and cold springs, along with the Climategate emails, might have something to do with it. I think it is a safe bet the Eastern Europeans don’t believe in global warming right now.

Well, it’s no surprise that temperatures have headed down in bad economic times. It takes literally millions of dollars to make all those adjustments every month and with money tight, maybe they have been letting things slip a bit. But judging from the size of the adjustment in Feb 2012, they must have found some extra money somewhere.

A professor of political sciences doing research on AGW sceptics and coming up with such humorous conclusions makes him surely something of a trickster, His research must be in trying to find out how utterly ridiculous he can be and still make people believe he is being serious. He must be a con. man because even the dimmest professor couldn’t really believe the utter rubbish that his report is, I think we should all move on to more serious subjects of which there are many on this site, and not give any more space to cranks and tricksters of the likes of Professor Scruggs,

“Occupy” their communication inputs. Introduce bacteria into the Bubble that the Group-think Sycophants inhabit.Lyle.scruggs@uconn.edu
WRT: http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2012/03/climate-change-skepticism-stems-from-recession-uconn-study-finds/
In which you are quoted: ““That the economy impacts the way people prioritize the problem of climate change is uncontroversial,” says Scruggs. “What is more puzzling is why support for basic climate science has declined dramatically during this period.”
Support for “basic climate science” has declined dramatically because more and more people are examining the output of Orthodox “Prove The Hockey Stick, Prove The CO2 and Feedbacks” Science and their Bullshit Detectors are going Apeshit.
It’s pretty easy to recognize when you aren’t part of “The Machine”.
Ed Jones
Ordinary Citizen

That is funny. Ironically I also have come to the conclusion Warmism is based on the economy. Their own. No doubt this poser will apply for a lucrative grant that will incorporate a fine stipend to further study and publicize his ‘findings’, Calling the EPA and George Soros.

“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity,” which is an unpopular viewpoint when the economy is bad, Scruggs continues.
The real problem is that more and more of the general public are coming to realize that almost all of those “many people” are from the active proponents of CAGW and that the economic activity that they want suppressed is the activities of all those outside their elite clique, while they themselves fully expect to experience greatly enhanced economic activity (via research grants, loan guarantees, subsidies, tax breaks, etc,) and that that has been their goal all along. The larger public is also coming to realize that the present dismal state of the world economy is due in no small part to to the incredibly stupid diversion of resources into these “solutions” which, even if they were fully embraced and implemented, would do absolutely nothing to help us avoid the “catastrophic” future, which the alarmist community has been using as a propaganda bludgeon to advance their agenda. An agenda that at heart has nothing to do with protecting the climate or the planet, but has always been about political power and control. The vast improvements to their personal financial positions are either a nice side benefit or a coequal goal to increased political control, depending on whether you choose to consider these people as just nefarious or as exemplars of pure evil.
As more and more of the “climate community” have openly admitted that the “science” is really irrelevant and that the goal is and always has been “redistribution of wealth” the worm has turned. Unfortunately, knowledge of those admissions is still mostly confined to those who garner their awareness of world events from nontraditional sources.The fellow travelers in the MSM are still doing their best to maintain the charade, but that worm is also turning as people increasingly come to realize that the legacy media have absolutely intention to provide them with anything other than exactly the story that their shared agenda demands. The “consensus” climate community’s communication problems all boil down to one thing, as so nicely aphorized by Megan McArdle back at the beginning of the Gleick incident, in what I still nominate as Climate Quote of the Century So Far
“After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.”

Mr Lynn says:
March 13, 2012 at 8:54 am
Who is paying this guy Scruggs for such rampant (and inedible) baloney?
I sure hope it’s not the taxpayers, but I fear the worst.
/Mr Lynn
Report of the ISA Workshop Grants Committee for 2003
isanet.ccit.arizona.edu/…/Governing_Council_Agenda_2003.doc
File Format: Microsoft Word – Quick View
While we had fears that Portland was a relatively unknown city for many of our members …… Lyle Scruggs and Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh are Comparative Politics …
Well I’m sure this is the strand of Spaghetti that hangs off the edge of the bowl. Clicking numerous google links took me to docs. and pages with the word “Sustainability” prominent therein.
I’m ‘shocked’.

Pro climate? I can say with complete confidence that 99.9999% of people are pro climate, without it we would all be dead.
I can can claim with supreme confidence that an ever growing number of people are becoming anti CAGW fraud and anti CAGW fraudster and anti CAGW dishonesty and anti CAGW ignorance.
Speaks volumes about these people when they claim sceptics are anti climate, no I am just anti being lied to on an industrial scale.

Yes, I agree the economic nose dive did have an influence but not in the way they think.
People got ticked off and went looking for answers just like I did and like me they found that the “Economic Collapse” was orchestrated. They find it leads right to the World Trade Organization (treaty ratified by Bill Clinton.) They found investigation of the AIG Bailout Scandal lead to five key new banking laws all signed by Bill Clinton. They found the entry of China into the WTO that exported their jobs to China was thanks to Bill Clinton. Did I say Bill Clinton?
And when you go digging into Bill Clinton you find he is a Rhodes Scholar, aligned with the London School of Economics and an international group pushing The Third Way Clinton is heavily aligned with Tony Blair who collects a couple million pounds from JP Morgan investment bank as an Advisor while he works as a special envoy to the middle east for the UN Incestuous ain’t it.
Also Clinton’s Mentor was Carroll Quigley and that is the real eye opener to what is actually going on. Read the rest in my comment: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/13/climate-craziness-of-the-week-eugenics-is-making-a-comeback-with-climate-optimized-human-engineering/#comment-921845
Once you see who is behind all the crud it is a lot easier to follow the money behind all the scams.
(Yeah Jim I am bashing the Bankers and elite again. We will take your protest as given and save you the trouble.)

“So it’s easier for people to disbelieve in climate change, thanand to accept that it is real but that although little should ever be done about it right now.”
One of many possible improved variations. The above applies to coolish luke-warmistas.
🙂

Your tax dollars at work !
Was the grant for this masterpiece provided by EPA, NSF, NIH or ….?
Probably the money came from TARP or some other Economic Stimulus monies which Obama HAD to spend to get the “economy moving again”.

So, the hypothesis is: Recession causes an increase in climate skepticism? To falsify that we just find an economy that is not in recession but the prevailing culture is still skeptical of “The Consensus” right? China. We’re done now, right?

I am deeply suspicious of any piece of “research” which is based on opinion polls. We know from the “97% agree” survey that construction of the questions can be so facile as to fail to distinguish between alarmists and skeptics. And on a controversial subject such as climate change there is a severe risk that misunderstandings on the part of whoever drafts the questions regarding the nature of the dichotomy between alarmists and skeptics can result in a question based on a false implied premise. An example ….
“When the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent, an average 60 percent of people surveyed said that climate change had already begun happening.”
If this sentence accurately reflects the wording of the question in the survey then there is an implied premise in the question that the climate didn’t used to change. Unfortunately, many of the general public who haven’t been following the debate may be unaware that the climate has never been in stasis. Indeed, this must be so otherwise the survey would have received a 100% vote as climate change began happening 4.5 billion years ago. Or did the drafters of this question do what many alarmists do and regard “climate change” and “catastrophic man-made climate change” as synonymous ?

ChE says:
March 13, 2012 at 9:56 am
No, no, no. It’s because the president is black.
======================================
LOL…..1/2 black, he only became wholly black after the election
..and the waters did stop rising after all
What got me was the energy prices will necessarily have to skyrocket…………
liberal ideas are a product of an affluent society…with spare time
…no one has time to pontificate about liberal ideas when they have no time and money
Well….that and the whole warm/cold, wet/dry, drought/flood, snow/rain….thing
Everyone gets tired of doom and gloom predictions that do not come true……..
The last thing anyone wants to hear right now is more doom and gloom

Mann is interviewed on ‘The Michael Smerconish Radio Show’. Humping his book.
Smerconish is a Faux “Conservative” or “Moderate”, (depending on how far to the Left you are).
Not holding my breath for the counterpoint interview with a qualified dissenter.

I like (not) the way that psychologists are always quick to tell us why we are thinking what we are thinking and keep a straight face while explaining it even though they demonstrably have no idea. Cognitive dissonance indeed, people have just (finally!) understood that gullible warming has nothing significant to do with human activity.
The conceit, the silly nomencalture and the unneccessarily complex rationale is very like the way champions of gullible warming are always conceitedly talking over their noses to the rest of us.
Two peas in a pod, and unfortunately neither seem to be familiar with Occam’s razor. Nor have the faintest idea about climate variation.

Bill Davis says:
March 13, 2012 at 9:42 am
Certainly not the only source of stupidity out there – A proposed potential role for increasing atmospheric CO2 as a promoter of weight gain and obesityhttp://www.nature.com/nutd/journal/v2/n3/full/nutd20122a.html#Background
____________________________________
Yeah and lets forget about all the hype against milk and eggs so kids now eat sugar coated cereal and drink soda by the gallon. If I recall correctly about 1900 the consumption was about 27 gr of carbs a day now it is often in excess of 300 gr. Of course all that Corn Syrup could not have anything to do with it…..
Oh wait! The CO2 in the atmosphere is converted in to sugar by the corn plant and Coca Cola makes that into Sody Pop to rot out the teeth of the kiddies. Now I understand the link.Sugar – a Toxin?: http://stay-healthy-enjoy-life.blogspot.com/2007/12/sugar-toxin.html
The Truth about High Fructose Corn Syrup: Sweet Surprise or Health Demise? http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=486

The paper also evaluated three other explanations for the crisis in public confidence: political partisanship, negative media coverage, and short- term weather conditions.
So learning the truth about the ‘behind the scene’ actions and thoughts of the “TEAM” is now called ‘Negative Media Coverage’? Sure glad to know there was no political partisanship during the Bush years.
Call me skeptical about Now that the economy is beginning to bounce back and the unemployment rate is shrinking, Scruggs says it makes sense that belief in global warming has begin to rebound.
See this on the GDP calculations.
How does the deficit affect the GDP calculation? Probably the largest shortcoming of GDP is that its numbers are artificially enhanced by government deficit spending. Currently the U.S. federal government is borrowing and spending roughly 10 percent of GDP per year. This deficit spending is included in the GDP calculation, making it appear that economic growth is stronger than it really is, although borrowing and spending at such levels is not a reflection of a healthy economy. The GDP calculation does not distinguish between changes in structural GDP and private GDP. To do that, the GDP calculation would have to be adjusted and shown net of deficit spending. The United States may need our GDP to contract some in the short term (due to reduced governmental spending) for the structural and private sector GDP to be able to produce sustainable long-term growth.http://www.brightworth.com/insights/white-papers/gdp-not-all-its-cracked-up-to-be/
Remember to subtract that 10 percent off the GDP growth in any news stories you read. It is not just your kids money they are stealing, they are also taking away any growth they actually will generate for years to come.
Last thought. If the cAGW trolls tell us only ‘Climate Scientists’ can report on climate change, do we really have to listen to a Poly Sc major?

The “researchers” shouldn’t have had to spend a lot of other people’s money merely to tell us about their own faith-based psychoderangements, which include the idea that everyone else is irrational, but they probably did.
And then they even forgot to mention the “fact” that specifically due to a their drastically underdeveloped economy, the Chinese and Indians are so irrational that they are trying to single handedly bring about “the destruction of creation”!

Why is Prof Scruggs is puzzled over the public’s declining support for climate change? The answer is obvious. The public is well aware of the difference between science & politics, & how the two are practiced. They recognize the AGW believers penchant for scare tactics and propaganda, as well as their reluctance to engage those opposed to the notion of significant man-made GW in open and honest science-based debate.

Dave Wendt says: @ March 13, 2012 at 10:05 am…As more and more of the “climate community” have openly admitted that the “science” is really irrelevant and that the goal is and always has been “redistribution of wealth” the worm has turned….
____________________
This is especially true after Mike Mann is accused of taxpayer fraud and he is protected by a twisting of words by the VA Supreme Court. It doesn’t help that it is now shown he has recieved almost $6 million in grants over the last 13 years and that does not include speaking fees.
Seems the real meaning of “redistribution of wealth” is stealing money from Joe Sixpack and putting it into their own pockets. But that has always been the problem with trying to implement “Social Welfare” The conmen always take their cut first and the publicised recipients get the left overs.

….A July 2009 paper published by Science and Public Policy Institute revealed the U.S. government has spent more than $79 billion since 1989 on policies and research related to climate change…

After years of being taught “this or that wouldn’t be as bad if there wasn’t global warming”, people are starting to realize that current economic recession wouldn’t be as bad if we didn’t waste so much money on fighting climate.

Perhaps what was learned from fakegate has something to do with the hypothetical drop in knowledge about climate change. We learned from fakegate that there are groups actively working to stop people from learning about science. Could these groups have had an influence?

“Lyle Scruggs, associate professor of political science…”
Need this article go any further?
Maybe it’s as simple as real scientists selling themselves out to the political scientists? Maybe it’s as simple as real scientists no longer arguing competing theories, data, and all that wonderful stuff that comes with the scientific method, and instead, trying to smear their opponents with the cleverest focus group tested phrase, such as “deniar.”
If real scientists wanted to be nothing more than political scientist, why work your butt off in school to get that science degree? It would have been so much easier to just chuck it, and to join the dumbest in the political science program, wouldn’t it?

“That the economy impacts the way people prioritize the problem of climate change is uncontroversial,” says Scruggs. “What is more puzzling is why support for basic climate science has declined dramatically during this period.”

Just one word is needed in response:
Duh!
(Boy, am I tempted to add more, but I promised just one word.)

“Cognitive dissonance, which arises when people experience conflicting thoughts and behaviors”
like wanting to shout that ‘you’re as mad as hell’, yet remaining as tranquil as a mill pond excusing the tripe because the author is an associate professor of political science and will know no better.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08

No doubt some linkage exists – when people have jobs etc., they don’t mind the government spending a few billions on lunatic projects. When people see the economy collapsing around them, they recognize that they are governed by people with a very strange agenda, and start to speak up against the prevailing dogma, which just happens to be CAGW.

“In recent years, the American public has grown increasingly skeptical of the existence of man-made climate change. Although pundits and scholars have suggested several reasons for this trend, a new study shows that the recent Great Recession has been a major factor.”
In recent years, the American public has grown increasingly skeptical of the signifcance of man-made climate change. Although pundits and scholars have suggested several reasons for this trend, a new study shows that the recent Great Recession has been a major factor.
There. Fixed it.

Reluctantly I am inclined to accept the conclusion given the short attention span of the American electorate. Obama’s current poll numbers are tanking in direct response to rising gasoline prices and probably some other issues as well, but mostly the price of gas. If this reading is correct then any policy that is seen to inhibit the economy which will directly impact the voter, will cause the voter to react unsupportively to any idea that drummed up the need to inhibit the economy in the first place. Call it a reversal of cause and effect. Americans vote their wallet and I suspect many other Democratic societies do as well. Tell me you are going to solve the world’s problems at no expense to me, then support will be at least condoning but not opposed. Demonstrate to me that your solutions cost me, then opposition rises first to the solution then to the need of any solution, then finally to denying the proposed problem really exists. Hence cost benefit analyses are demanded.
Sorry, but I’m not optimistic that the public has seen through this current hoax (AGW) for the proper reason. The track record doesn’t support a deliberative researched conclusion by the public. They are easily led astray by shallow populist themes, that’s why liberals use them over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take the win to end the hoax but be warned as soon as this one is done, a new one will be foisted in order to scam the tax payer yet again.

So it’s official. AGW is a faith with no scientific basis.
The science is settled: there’s no such thing as manmade Global Warming. Now it’s just about politics, and the bad guys are STILL winning. Until we find a way of aligning politicians’ self-interest with sceptical public opinion they will continue their wicked hoax.

When you can see there’s been no warming in 17 years, but believe it’s warming because the climate models say it is, that’s cognitive dissonance.
When you label people who don’t believe the AGW hysteria as being anti-climate, that’s stupidity.

There may be some truth here. It is a fact that professed environmentalism rises in good times, when people can afford public virtue. In fact, societies care little for large-scale environmental regulation until per-capita income reaches a fairly uniform threshold–which is why there will be a significant green movement in China in coming decades.

The underlying temperature trend since satellite measurement began (~30 years) is ~0.16C per decade once known sources of short term variability are backed out (ENSO, volcanoes, solar). This holds true for both terrestrial and satellite records and is unchanged across the last 10 years. Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf. Global warming continues no matter how many times “pause”, “lack” and “stopped” are sprinkled into such articles.

“What is more puzzling is why support for basic climate science has declined dramatically during this period.”
Obviously nothing to do with the bad science, the distorted data and unfounded scare stories.
That would mean the public are becoming smarter and that would never do.

Pull My Finger says:
March 13, 2012 at 1:24 pm
And this proves/solves… what… exactly?
I just surveyed my butt, and it says global warming is worse when I sit down.
Can I get a grant?
*
LOL! In support of the findings of your butt, I’ll give you a dollar.

Oddly in one way they are right , when things are going well people can indulge in unimportant and meaningless pursuits , and they can take a rather slack attitude to money . But when things go bad , that changes it all, suddenly they do start to look at the bottom line much more , they start to ask questions like ‘why’ in areas they never asked before and they withdraw from ideas that to them which are seen as unimportant but nice to have to core of their needs .
The trouble is far from clear that this interest will come back and the return of better economic times , the mob interest waxes and wanes and what can be hot one minute is no ice cold the next. As the old saying went, ‘today’s news is tomorrows chip wrapper ‘.
Add to that the various issues like fakegate , the leaked e-mails , which to be honest are not really hot issue once you move away from those interested in the subject on both sides and toward the general population which , no offense to Watts have probable never heard of this nor Realclimate etc web sites.
And its worth remember the two golden rules of politician’s ,’ get elected ‘ ‘stay elected ‘ , once it became clear those two rules could not be meet via the AGW scare it was always going to hit the buffers . And its the corrosive mix that is bringing the AGW scare train to a halt, it was after-all a train powered by political will rather than by the rather poor science .

It ain’t that simple. Yes, I’m sure that the state of the economy has something to do with changing attitudes, but only in the sense that difficult times make those with common sense examine with more care the enormous cost of so-called mitigation schemes and realise how destructive they would be. But in another take on the declining support of CAGW dogma, Dr Karl Braganza from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is quoted in “The Australian” today as saying “People want to see the things projected for the next 20 to 30 years happening now and if they don’t see it, their acceptance of the science is ameliorated by that.” Could I suggest, Dr Braganza, the reality is that our acceptance of the science has been ameliorated because the things projected over the past 20 to 30 years have not eventuated.

Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 1:58 pm
The underlying temperature trend since satellite measurement began (~30 years) is ~0.16C per decade once known sources of short term variability are backed out (ENSO, volcanoes, solar). This holds true for both terrestrial and satellite records and is unchanged across the last 10 years. Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011
==========================================================
Lmao!! More of the linguistically challenged. What part of the present participle do you guys not understand? BTW, try the last 15 years or no warming….. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997.25/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997.25/trend
Ammonite, you know, people laugh at you guys when you say that warming has continued unabated when it clearly has ceased. You can rationalize any way you want to. You can pretend Foster and Rahmstorf know how to quantify certain signals (they’ve demonstrated they can’t) and you can even pretend you all know what signals are most important. But, none of that matters because it has clearly quit warming for the present and moving more and more distant past.
Tell me, what weight did they put on the AMO and the AO? Or are they positing that they have nothing to do with our global temps? Clouds? ….lol

Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 1:58 pm
The underlying temperature trend since satellite measurement began (~30 years) is ~0.16C per decade once known sources of short term variability are backed out (ENSO, volcanoes, solar). This holds true for both terrestrial and satellite records and is unchanged across the last 10 years. Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044022.pdf. Global warming continues no matter how many times “pause”, “lack” and “stopped” are sprinkled into such articles.
There is such a big logical disconnect in there that I’m not sure it’s even worth pointing it out because if you really believe what you typed then you probably don’t have the high-school maths needed to see the error!
However, being a sucker for punishment, I’ll give it a try:
Imagine for a moment that the global average temperature follows a perfect sine wave with a period of 60 years, because of purely natural influences. We’ll also pretend for now that a “global average temperature” actually has some sort of physical meaning.
We start measuring it and we notice that it’s trending upwards. Of course, we don’t actually know about the natural cycle so we have no way of knowing where in that (unknown) cycle we started to measure. But we still notice that it’s trending from our start point.
Let’s suppose now that we just happen to have started our measurements at the very lowest point of a cycle. Because of the shape of a sine wave, by the time we get to about 25 years of measurements we’ll have a pretty big trend and that trend will continue as our measurements go past the peak and start dropping down the other side of the sine wave.
In fact, our measurements won’t show “no trend” until we reach the very bottom of the next cycle exactly 60 years after we started. By 61 years, we’ll have an increasing trend again as it starts up on the next cycle. This does NOT mean that our average temperature is “continuing to increase” throughout the whole cycle any more than it would be “continuing to decrease” if we’d happened to start our measurements at the very peak.
Exactly the same thing applies with your assertion. If GAT has trended up for the first 20 of the last 30 years then OF COURSE it will still show a trend upwards now, unless for some reason it had plummeted all the way back to it’s old level after the peak – in which case we really would have cause to worry!
It’s the same fallacy built into the “last decade was the warmest” argument – OF COURSE it would be if we’ve just passed the peak of a relatively gradual curve. If you heat a pot of water rapidly until it boils, then turn the heat off completely, and keep measuring it’s temperature as it slowly cools then the average temperature over, say, 10 minutes, will continue to increase until the time it boiled is more than 10 minutes ago.
If you bring it to the boil then turn the heat down but not off, it will continue to show “the hottest 10 minutes” for a long time after it stopped rising!

Joe, have you read the F&R paper? As a thought experiment, you posit a sine wave of 60 years for temperature evolution with randomness superimposed atop. Does this appear to you to be consistent with F&R? F&R show randomness superimposed on a straight line – straight across the entire 30 year duration. If this were part of your sine wave up-slope we could not be nearly near the top and 60 years would appear to be far too short for the period. What do you think? Lets see you demonstrate your mathematical reasoning before speculating on mine.

James Sexton says: March 13, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011
Lmao!! … Tell me, what weight did they put on the AMO and the AO?
Rhetorical question James. Do you believe projecting from an El Nino high to a La Nina low is likely to be a better predictor of temperature across the next ten years than F&R? Your question about AMO and AO makes no sense given the content of their paper. Feel free to have 1,000,000 last words.

How did they miss the clear issue of Cause and Effect?
The number of Blue Post Office Drop Boxes has declined 50% since 2000:SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1 — The number of U.S. Postal Service boxes on the streets has dropped by more than half since 2000, officials say.http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/09/01/Postal-mailboxes-vanishing-from-US/UPI-87721314911891/
Clearly, Fear of Loss from the actual, measurable decline in letter boxes, is the principle reason why people no longer have to use CAGW’s Fake Fears to get their “Fear Fix.”
They transferred their need to fear something, from the imaginary, debunked and unsupportable CAGW claims, to the obvious and measurable decline in Blue Post Office Drop Boxes.
🙂

The failure of renewables to pay off as promised, and the news about their difficulties in Europe, has played a role.
The authors also should have considered that support was artificially whooped up by a stream of MSM commentary and crusaders’ activities–and that it is unnatural for whipped up enthusiasm to persist for long–fatigue sets in.
And I think the vocal commentary of disbelievers in Comments and face-to-face interactions is having an effect.

Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Joe, have you read the F&R paper? As a thought experiment, you posit a sine wave of 60 years for temperature evolution with randomness superimposed atop. Does this appear to you to be consistent with F&R? F&R show randomness superimposed on a straight line – straight across the entire 30 year duration. If this were part of your sine wave up-slope we could not be nearly near the top and 60 years would appear to be far too short for the period. What do you think? Lets see you demonstrate your mathematical reasoning before speculating on mine.
Never mind the paper, did you even read my post? Nowhere did I specify “randomness superimposed on top” because I wasn’t suggesting a realistic model for climate.
All I was doing was pointing out with the simplest cyclic model I could think of (a sine wave) why there is a complete logical disconnect in your assertion that “there’s still an upward trend so it hasn’t stopped”. If that holds true of the simplest cycle then it also holds true as any cyclic changes become more complicated.
It also holds as a false logical step if non-cyclic changes are superimposed on the cycles unless we know with 100% certainty that the non-cyclical change far exceeds the cyclical one. Which we don’t seeing as we don’t know any non-cyclic climate signal that may be present with any certainty, let alone all the natural climate cycles. So your original statement “it shows 0.16 deg / decade so warming is continuing” that I challenged is, logically, unsupportable.
That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, just that it’s unsupportable – it can’t be relied on or stated as a “fact”.

>>Scruggs and UConn political science graduate student Salil Benegal published their findings online in the journal Global Environmental Change on Feb. 24………. The study relies primarily on information drawn from a number of national and international public opinion surveys dating to the late 1980s.
No doubt Scruggs and company got a handsome grant from which they drew equally handsome stipends while they produced this tripe… ultimately at taxpayer expense. Heck. If the feds want to pay me to produce garbage, I’ll produce as much as they like too. The truth, apparently, doesn’t matter. Propaganda does matter, and the feds will continue to pay for it as long as some people pay attention and others are willing to provide it.

Now that the economy is beginning to bounce back and the unemployment rate is shrinking, Scruggs says it makes sense that belief in global warming has begin to rebound.
“We would expect such a rebound to continue as the economy improves,” he says. “You wouldn’t make that prediction if you think something else, like political rhetoric, is the issue.”

Foolish the idea may be, but (at least for now) its proponent is being scientific. Make a prediction. See if it holds. Let’s see what the belief level is in two more years.

At http://www.altenergyshift.com we have analysed the sources of anti-climate denial in extent. You are welcome to debate our findings but be prepared for a taste of humility. Hayden

The best you can do is give a reference to an entire website? Specific references please, to specific articles making the case you want us to consider. No one with a life has time to waste ferreting through hundreds of articles on the say-so of a rude semi-anonymous bad-mouther (“anti-climate denial” if you are too locked into the meme to get the point).

“Many people believe that part of the solution to climate change is suppression of economic activity, which is an unpopular viewpoint when the economy is bad”, Scruggs continues.
It looks like they’ve finally discovered a negative feedback — the economy! The more they use climate change as a reason to suppress economic activity, the more unpopular their climate religion becomes. Unfortunately for these rabid environmentalists, suppressing the economy is a higher priority than suppressing CO2. It’s such a conundrum that I almost feel sorry for them.

“Shortpoet-GTD says:
March 13, 2012 at 5:07 pm
At http://www.altenergyshift.com we have analysed the sources of anti-climate denial in extent. You are welcome to debate our findings but be prepared for a taste of humility. Hayden”
Somehow I don’t think anybody is against climate.
I know for a fact that climate exists LOL. I also know that CAGW causes IQ levels to drop to alarmingly low levels that are unsustainable. I havn’t quite come to the conclusion if it is excess CO2 which is the cause and will need a $11,438,123.00 grant to study this phenomena.
/sarc

Is there any doubt that climate scientists are in fact the very brightest of the environmentalist crowd and environmental issues are at the very core of their passion for activism? It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the vast majority of them support the CAGW cause. In contrast, I think it is revealing that a healthy number of statisticians and physicists are a bit more circumspect as evidenced by many of the great posts and comments on this blog and others.
I know this is OT but I think it is important to recognize who these people really are.
Jim

Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 4:36 pm
James Sexton says: March 13, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Please refer to Foster & Rahmstorf 2011
Lmao!! … Tell me, what weight did they put on the AMO and the AO?
Rhetorical question James. Do you believe projecting from an El Nino high to a La Nina low is likely to be a better predictor of temperature across the next ten years than F&R? Your question about AMO and AO makes no sense given the content of their paper. Feel free to have 1,000,000 last words.
=====================================================
It won’t take 1,000,000. First, you and F&R are confused as to what ENSO is. Do you think it’s shifts are random? It is a function not a cause. And ENSO can’t be quantified. Secondly, F&R’s argument, is that if not for ENSO, volcanoes, and solar activity, ….(natural forcings), then everything would be continuing as it had during the 90s. Okay, well what of the other naturally occurring events? Do they all just cancel out each other? Are they part of the “increasing” temps?
It is either arrogance or fallacy, but either way, they forgot many other factors which go into our climate which operate irrespective of GHGs. They failed to address them. The work is nothing but sophistry.

Alternate conclusion …. maybe even the average Joe realizes trying to go “carbon-free” is a cost we can’t afford, especially when the economy is bad.
It is useless to try to covert hard AGWers to a rational point of view. Any observation they make , they will twist to support their case.
Hopeless.

Joe says: March 13, 2012 at 5:47 pm
All I was doing was pointing out with the simplest cyclic model I could think of (a sine wave) why there is a complete logical disconnect in your assertion that “there’s still an upward trend so it hasn’t stopped”.
Ok. Take the 2nd derivative of a function. If it is small, what does it imply about its likely progression across the short term? There is no “logical disconnect” in observing the consistency of the F&R slope across 30 years and extrapolating it forward another 10. In agreement with your analysis, trying to project it forward 100 years would seem overly ambitious. F&R is worth reading and considering Joe.

Economy rebound??? Decreasing unemployment ??? Same people in the msm that bring us the lie of agw. Bring lies about the economy. Real unemployment is far above what is reported. They changed how it is calculated from 3 years ago. Similar massaging of the numbers. Just like global temps. Also , the percent excludes those that have given up looking. The housing market is bad, the debt is worse , gas continues to go up. Only improvement as stated above is inflated GDP, and inflated stock market in part due to fed manipulation. Just an article to support two lies agw and economic recovery.

Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 8:32 pm
F&R is worth reading and considering Joe.
============================================
As one who has read it, and revisited more times than I care to admit, I disagree.
If “if and buts” were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas.
The entire paper is centered around the thought that something odd is occurring to keep the otherwise rising temps down. While in an entire denial of cyclical happenstance, they call on cyclical and natural events to explain why the temps have rose. Ignoring the fact that these cyclical events occurred during the time period reference…. only more predominantly causing the temps to rise. For example, ENSO when in a negative phase, (according to the paper) is partially the cause of the negative trend. But, when it is in a positive phase, GHGs are the cause of the temps rising?
Well, which is it? Do natural occurrences dominate the climate or does our influence?

The authors also found a strong relationship between jobs and people’s prioritization of climate change.

I find a strong relationship between the rising number of failed predictions and people’s prioritization of climate change.
Now, aside from Climategate, Glaciergate, Fakegate, and other gates here are some more possible reasons or a combination of some or all.
1) People where led to believe that snowfalls would become a thing of the past. The snow industry was doomed. They were told to expect milder winters, now they are being told to expect colder winters.
2) People have become bored, fed up with reports of climate change in the media. I recall from memory only that media studies showed large swathes of people going to make cups of tea or changing channels when global warming came up on the news.
Plus the numerous other ‘gates’ and failed predictions / projections, that those with an little more than a passing interest made them more sceptical. Some of these people passed on the news to some of their Warmist friends and associates.
The employment and scepticism link is just ONE reason.

Roger Knights says: March 14, 2012 at 12:08 am
Hi Roger. You link to a number of WUWT posts critical of Foster and Rahmstorf. Bob Tisdale’s post shows that ENSO behaviour is complex and its full complexity cannot be expressed in a simple ENSO index. Yet El Nino’s result in higher measured temperature and La Nina’s lower. Hmm… It is not hard to see how Bob’s treatment can be accurate yet F&R still use the index credibly.
One of the beauties of F&R is that its merit or otherwise can be ascertained across short time frames. Their trend is statististically significant down to ~5 years. So the lazy course is to reconvene in 2018 (say) to see how their analysis has performed. Expect new temperature highs whenever El Nino’s of sufficient strength arise.

Given that our federal response to the real estate bubble has been like the Japanese response to theirs , more than 20 years ago. IMO we expect to have an anemic economy for a generation. OMG alarmists are screwed.

Shortpoet-GTD says:
March 13, 2012 at 5:07 pmAt altenergyshift.com we have analysed the sources of anti-climate denial in extent. You are welcome to debate our findings but be prepared for a taste of humility. Hayden
Hayden, your claim is misleading. You have analyzed nothing except the failure of your site. Where is this “analysis”? The “articles” on your site are typically submissions by guest nitwits, often a single paragraph in length, with half-a-dozen comments by other nitwits. You are flogging a dud, desperately trying to mooch crumbs and droppings from here, the most popular climate site.

Its not due to the economy per se.
The fact is that for years, the costs associated with going green were not being felt by the consumer. The costs were on business and there response was to relocate, or to the extent that prices were driven higher, people thought that this was lal part and parcel of inflation and the general cost of living.
However, the bill is now coming in. In today’s economy, people can see the effect of the loss of manufacturing and the associated loss of job opportunity. People can also now see the extra costs on their own energy bills. In the UK, billing has not been transparent and much of the green subsidies are hiden and not clear from a quick review of the bill. However, that is beginning to change. So too, is MSM who are now beginning to report on the additional costs.
When one is being asked to pay for something, one starts enquiring (I) why am I paying this? (ii)what have I got for my money? (iii) Is it good value? etc etc.
It is because of this that AGW is coming under increasing scrutiny and people are beginning to wake up to the fact that there is little substance in AGW and the response to tackling the perceived threat appears to have been grossly miscalculted. It is another example of government waste, but on a monumental scale.
Skeptism is here to stay even if the economy improves (which at least in much of Europe and the UK looks a long off affair).

Here in Europe, “we” don’t have a stronger “pro-climate ethos”. It is the bureaucrats who call themselves our representatives, or our leaders, (they have copyrighted those words by making any political concurrence impossible) that have an apparent stronger pro-climate belief. It makes them able to overtax everyone and everything.

Ammonite says:
March 13, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Do you believe projecting from an El Nino high to a La Nina low…
Please check out the following RSS for the past 15 years and 3 months. It is flat and the green line goes from a La Nina to a La Nina. Furthermore, look at the lowest point on the right. Talking about the warmest La Nina on record as others have claimed no longer makes much sense either.http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/plot/rss/from:1996.9/trend

Doug Cotton says:REPLY: This is just repackaged “Slaying the Sky Dragon” rubbish. Cotton asked me to carry it and I’ve flat out refused. They created a “journal” to try to legitimze papers published there, which to me speaks of desperation.
It’s also reached a level where it is now nothing more than spam.

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